Three Ways Remus Lupin
by magdalenrose
Summary: ... didn't kiss Sirius Black after curfew, and one way he did.


**Three Ways Remus Lupin Didn't Kiss Sirius Black After Curfew And One Way He Did.**

by Magdalen-Rose

for bironic

**Rating:** PG  
**Pairing:** duh  
**Spoilers:** none

**Disclaimer: **Catching the bus outside Bloomsbury Publishers is the closest I've ever gotten to owning these characters.

* * *

His eyes reflected the storm – black sky and white lightning. He stood leaning against the windowsill staring wildly out at the rain, the north wind coming off the mountains and whipping shining black hair back over his pale, luminous face. Remus saw him coiled, ready to spring, the hunting dog sniffing the quarry. The world was throwing itself at Sirius in all its fury – rain lashing his face, wind shivering over his skin, thunder and lightning setting him in black and white relief against a shaking sky. The Astronomy Tower swayed below them, but even the stones just under their feet seemed to belong to a different world, let alone the prefects and professors below them.

And Sirius raised himself on tiptoe to meet it, leaned out over the windowsill, screaming things Remus couldn't understand against the gathering midnight thunder. The newly cold air raised goosebumps over Remus' dirty-sweaty skin, and he felt his back bristle, Sirius reaching out an arm to him, drawing him to the edge, surrounding him in shivering warmth. He kissed the jutted edge of Sirius' jaw, and felt the boy tense and then settle closer to him, shifting his weight onto the foot near to Remus. Sirius' mouth was the only spot of colour in his face, not-quite-pink and surprisingly soft with its set, uncompromising lines. Sirius' mouth tasted of cigarette smoke and rain.

* * *

"Give me the map."

"No."

"You're holding it upside down."

"I'm trying to work out a shortcut."

"We're definitely going to get nicked."

"You're the prefect, Moony – this probably counts as nicking me. I mean, technically speaking."

"Don't say things like 'technically speaking' – it makes me think I'm being mocked."

"Technically speaking, you sort of are."

"Are we even in the right dimension? That was a hell of a jolt I got off the suit of armour back there."

"We're fine."

"It's just that I'm definitely going to hold you responsible if it turns out we've accidentally time-travelled. I mean, if we turn that corner and some bloke in morning dress assures us in a stereotypically contrived conversation that it is definitely 1865, I'm going to just have to take a moment from problem-solving to say, 'right, Sirius Black, definitely your fault'."

"Moony, if you don't shut up, I'm going to smack you very hard about the face."

"So give me the map and I'll stop talking, and, as a bonus, actually figure out how the hell to get us home before daybreak."

"Moony, if you don't shut up, I'm going to tell James you wear boxer shorts with pictures of elves on them."

"If you don't give me the map, I'm going to tell James you sleep with your thumb in your mouth."

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to tell Peter you fancy him."

"Liar."

"Wanker."

"If you don't give me the map in three seconds, I'm going to do something drastic and graphically biological."

"Wait – there's a shortcut here, if you –"

"See."

"You've done better."

"Liar."

* * *

It was Bellatrix' fault, of course. Wide scarlet smile, pale legs crossed under her short plaid skirt, slowly filing her nails as she sliced quietly away at his bravado, reduced him to a shivering little boy who doesn't understand why he's made Mummy angry.

"I hate her," Sirius seethed, finally alone with him, finally, after hours of trooping to and from classes and dinner and having to pretend everything was okay while the very fact of being with people was agony, was a façade, was a hateful and terrifying thing because of the terror and the hatred burning away at him until he was worried he would just start spinning out of his own body then and there.

Being with Remus didn't count as being with people. For one thing, Remus wasn't, technically, entirely human, but for another, it was just like being with himself, only better, because someone else was there to keep him company. Only even better than that, because Remus was Remus as well as company, and that was an added bonus – company, understanding and endlessly accepting company, would have been good enough, so Sirius occasionally stopped to blink at his ridiculous luck to have gotten Remus thrown into the bargain as well.

And there was Remus' hand on the back of his neck, that terrifyingly intimate gesture that sent electric pulses down the curved bones of his back, and there was Remus' mouth in his hair, down his forehead, Remus' tongue flickering over his upper lip.

"I love you," he whispered, pushing Sirius' hair off his forehead and kissing him again. "I will always."

Somehow that was enough. For now. Somehow, it would do.

* * *

He couldn't sleep. The moon was almost full, and it sliced across the room into his bed. He'd tried counting house elves, forwards and backwards, but they kept pausing to talk to him, and his tired brain couldn't cope with that, so he gave up and resumed the aimless tossing and turning.

Across the room, Sirius was breathing deeply, the blankets pulled up under his chin as he slept in his customary hunched, sideways position. Remus listened to him breathe for a while, remembering coming back to himself one morning after the full moon, hearing Sirius' voice turn from gibberish to sense in his ear, watching Sirius' hunched body return to full colour, lifting his nose and whimpering as Sirius' scent paled.

And a strange new certainty – "you will always be with me" – taking hold in the depths of his soul, more than a hope or the adolescent dreamings of eternity he'd had when Sirius first slipped their hands together and kissed him and whispered "who needs girls, eh?" in the gathering darkness by the lake.

Now Remus slides out from under the hot red blanket into the chilled night air and pads across the stone floor to Sirius' bed opposite. He strokes the tendrils of black hair off Sirius' moonlit face and gently leans in to press his mouth against Sirius' slightly open lips.

The boy starts, rolls to his back, blinks briefly.

"Moony - ?"

"That's all." And another quick kiss, Sirius reaching sleepily up to stroke his neck, pull him close for a moment, and then Remus is lightly stepping back to bed, slipping between the covers. He sleeps, and the moon moves slowly across his face until daybreak.


End file.
